How to fix the agent problem in College Football

Ok, so College Football has a problem with agents getting to kids before they really should. The question becomes is there anything College and The NFL can do about that? Nick Saban responded by banning NFL scouts from attending his practices (at least for the short term). I don’t think that is the answer, and I don’t think scouts are the problem. They may be a contributing factor to it, but the real problem is the agents. In my mind to really solve this there would have to be NCAA and NFL infractions imposed on agents and players who decide to break the rules.

Since these agents do not work for the NFL, or the NFLPA it would be hard to impose fines or suspensions on them, but the league could blacklist them. They could say if a player signs with an agent found to breaking the rules that the players gets a NFL suspension. That would effectively stop guys from singing with certain rule breaking agents, but I seriously doubt the NFLPA would go for that one.

The schools could try and ban the agents from coming on campus, but that would not effectively remove this problem. They also cannot baby sit the CFB players 24 hours a day. In the end players who break the rules when transitioning from College to the NFL draft have to face some penalty for breaking the rules. They should face some kind of suspension.

I don’t think a suspension system wouldn’t work as it would also punish the NFL teams, when they are not the ones misbehaving. A nice fine, maybe up to 5% of their first signing bonus would be the most ideal way to insure that players are not accepting gifts from agents before their final college football game.

Related Links:

•The Business of College Football
•MTR College Sports